I could stay
by Faberrittanainthetardis
Summary: Set before Alison disappeared. Emily sees Paige run into the bathroom in tears and follows her to find out what's wrong. Paily fic.


**Title: I could stay**

**Summary (from prompt): 'Can you do a younger Em and Paige with Em seeing her upset and trying to comfort her?'. **

**Pairing: Paige/Emily**

**A/N: If you have any prompts you want to be filled drop them in my inbox on here or my ask box on tumblr. The link to my blog is on my profile page on here. Also, thank you all for your reviews for my other Paily one shots. I really appreciate them. **

"Damn it." Emily muttered as she glanced at her watch while trying to simultaneously power walk towards the school entrance and run a hand through her hair in an effort to make it look presentable. Her mom had to leave early for work that morning and Emily's alarm clock had decided that was the perfect time to malfunction. As a result she'd woken up an hour later than she usually did and she was now late for school. Very late for school as a matter of fact seeing as it was already five minutes into second period. She jogged up the stairs, almost tripping in her haste and pushed the door open to walk into the building. She started quickly for her locker, hopeful that she'd be able to get to class before it was too late to go.

She turned the corner at the end of the hallway to get to her locker and startled slightly when she spotted someone running hurriedly down the hallway towards her. She'd expected the halls to be vacant because of her lateness. The girl, who Emily vaguely recognised as being on her swim team hurried into the bathroom wiping at her cheeks. Her stance and the expression on her face made it clear that she was upset about something. Without really thinking about what she was doing, Emily altered her course and walked towards the bathroom instead of her own locker. She pushed open the door and stepped inside, wary of startling the already upset girl. She found her standing in the bathroom, her head ducked and her hands braced on either side of the sink.

"Hey." Emily murmured as she stepped further into the room. "Are you okay?"

Paige startled slightly at the interruption, having not noticed the door open. She glanced up to find Emily standing there and embarrassedly wiped her falling tears from her cheeks. She must look a mess, she realised, while Emily looked typically radiant. "I-I'm fine."

"You don't look fine." Emily responded carefully.

"Well I am!" Paige snapped irritably, her nerves typically coming out as anger. Emily flinched and Paige visibly deflated. "I'm sorry Emily. I just…I didn't mean to snap at you."

"It's okay." Emily offered a small smile as she stepped closer and leaned her hip against the sink next to the one Paige was standing in front of. "It's Paige, right?"

Paige looked surprised that Emily knew her name. Sure, they were on the same swim team but they'd never really talked before, their only interaction being polite nods of greeting in the locker room. "Um…yeah. How do you…?"

"You're on my swim team." Emily answered her smile still firmly in place. "You're like the best on the team."

"Apart from you." Paige countered as a blush formed on her cheeks. She looked away, unable to hold Emily's gaze.

"Are you serious? You're my primary competition." Emily argued. "You're always beating my times."

Paige looked up again to make sure that Emily was being sincere and not just lying to make her feel better. Emily stared back unwaveringly, her expression completely sincere. Paige felt a warm glow spread across her chest in response to the unexpected praise. As quickly as the feeling had arrived however it turned into a sickeningly tight feeling as she thought back to Alison's venomous words from earlier than morning.

_Paige was staring distractedly across the hall when the locker she had a loose grip on was slammed shut. She jumped violently and turned her head to see who had pushed her locker door closed. It was Alison, of course. Paige was surprised to find that her friends weren't flanking her at either side. _

"_Hey Pigskin." Alison smirked, leaning against the locker next to Paige's. "Looking for Em? She wasn't in first period."_

"_I know." Paige muttered before she could stop herself. _

"_Stalker much?" Alison asked with a look of disgust. She shook her head disdainfully. "You're pathetic. You're standing here watching her locker like a hawk, waiting for her to show up as if she'll notice you, as if she'll ever like you back." She stepped into Paige's personal space causing her to cringe. Alison smirked in satisfaction at the intimidated look on Paige's face. "Newsflash: Emily isn't like you. And even if she was, you'd be the last person she'd want to date. She wouldn't look at you twice."_

_Paige's eyes watered at the truth of the accusation and she averted her eyes to the left and down, unwilling to allow Alison to see the sign of weakness. _

"_Keep your head held high and your eyes dry" she heard echo around her head in her father's voice, "Don't ever let them see you cry."_

"_I'm talking to you Pigskin!" Alison hissed angrily. "Look at me."_

_Paige blinked back her tears and looked up, forcing her expression to remain emotionless. _

"_Unless you want your dad and Emily to find out about your sick feelings, you better stay away from her." Alison threatened menacingly. "Stop staring at her locker, stop watching her in class, don't even look in her direction…got it?"_

_Paige nodded silently. _

_Apparently that wasn't enough for Alison because she gave Paige a solid shove to her shoulder, shoving her back into her locker. "What was that? I didn't hear you."_

"_Yes." Paige choked out against the lump in her throat. "I'll stay away."_

_Alison smirked, content with her victory. "Good. See you around Pigskin." With that said, she turned on her heel as if nothing had happened and strutted down the hallway to her next class. _

_Paige continued to lean against her locker long after the bell had rung for second period. She didn't trust her legs to carry her there and the books she'd been about to gather from her locker were long forgotten about. Finally tears inevitably came and with great effort Paige peeled herself off the locker and hurried down the hallway to the nearest bathroom. _

Emily frowned in concern when Paige bit her lip and bowed her head, clearly on the verge of tears again. "Paige?"

"I'm fine." Paige responded, her voice thick with emotion. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize for being upset." Emily assured. She took a step forward and placed her hand comfortingly on Paige's arm. "Whatever it is, you can talk about it."

Paige stiffened at the touch and her gaze moved to the hand resting on her upper arm. Emily misread the look and quickly pulled away, assuming that she'd overstepped a line. It wouldn't be the first time her 'problem' had caused her to overstep.

"Sorry." Emily apologized as Paige looked up at her through teary eyes.

"It's okay." Paige whispered, cursing herself for reacting the way she had. If she hadn't Emily's hand would still be there and Paige wouldn't be missing the contact…Paige cut herself off with a shake of her head, ashamed by her own thoughts. She shouldn't be thinking like that about someone who was offering to comfort her, she told herself. It was wrong.

"Paige?" Emily asked again. "Are you okay? You look kind of dazed."

"Yeah, I…" Paige lifted a hand to wipe at her teary eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm just distracted."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Emily asked carefully. "My friends have always said that I'm a good listener."

Her friends. Paige's blood ran cold at the statement. Telling Emily what was wrong with her would do no good, she realised, because Emily was just as wrapped around Alison's little finger as everyone else seemed to be. Telling Emily what was wrong would only result in rejection and Paige didn't think she could handle that. From anyone else, maybe she could. But not from her, not from Emily. She ignored the overwhelming need to blurt her feelings out and settled upon shaking her head. "Not really."

"Oh." Emily frowned at the answer but quickly neutralised her expression. "That's okay. Do you want me to leave?"

Paige shrugged though everything in her screamed that no, she most definitely didn't want Emily to leave her alone. "You can if you want to. I don't want to keep you from class."

Emily offered Paige a reassuring smile and hopped up onto the sink counter. "I'm late anyway. I can stay with you until third period if you don't want me to leave."

"Okay." Paige returned the smiled unsurely.

Emily's smile morphed into a small grin and she patted the counter next to her. Paige wavered for a moment, wary of getting too close. She couldn't deny Emily though and after only a couple of seconds she moved to sit on the counter. They lapsed into silence and Paige nervously fidgeted with her hands in her lap.

"So when did you start swimming?" Emily asked, hoping to spark up conversation.

"When I was really young." Paige answered, glancing sidelong at Emily. "My dad says I learned to swim before I could walk."

"Really? Me too…"

They kept up the conversation until the bell rang signalling the end of second period and they heard students filtering into the halls. Paige grew rather antsy much to Emily's confusion and not long after she excused herself with a rushed out apology. Emily couldn't help but worry about the fear on Paige's face as the other girl left the room. Maybe she was being bullied or somebody was harassing her. She quickly forgot about it however when her friends walked into the bathroom a few minutes later. Alison of course, demanded to know where she'd been. Emily told her that she'd been late for school but purposefully left Paige out of the conversation though she wasn't sure why.

THE END


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